


Fennel, to Soothe

by FoxxyOpal



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Animal Death, Blood, Disease, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Non-binary character, Other, Pre-Canon, Sexual Content, Trans Male Character, in which asra used to be the student
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 00:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14153070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxxyOpal/pseuds/FoxxyOpal
Summary: "If i look back, I am lost," Someone, somewhere, has whispered these words to you long ago, an echo of something lost. You have hated them, wept for them - and now, you are them.Too bad you don't know it, yet.(In which broken fragments float to the surface and still only form half the picture.)





	1. To Taste

**Author's Note:**

> Ever just feel like you wanna write but don't have a real plan? That's what this fic is for.

“Asra--”

The name sends your vision spinning.

The rattle in your lungs is disarming in how it reverberates up your spine and forces you to blink away black spots. You cough, once, and feel something wet on your lips. 

Somewhere from the open windows, a breeze rolls in - hot and dry and fragrant with summer fruit and the smells of the city. You swallow and taste nothing but iron.

You want to weep.

Asra runs his hand over your hair, and it’s a special kind of gentleness that you’ve come to expect from your apprentice. He shushes you, like a mother to her baby, pressing you to his chest in a last ditch attempt at bringing you comfort.

You dig your fingers into the fabric of his shirt.

Down the street, you hear the familiar, creaking slam of the loal seamstresses front door.

You remember how she had invited you to dinner one night - taking one long, unimpressed look at both you and Asra before telling, rather than asking, your little two man party to get inside of her house. You had eaten saffron chicken that night - a meal that brought you both relief after weeks of walking and living off of meager provisions.

Asra had been younger, then, and unused to the travel. You, too, had been younger then, and stronger than you are now, had graciously let your fledgling apprentice ride on your back when you had finally reached the city limits. How odd a pair you two must have seemed, tired and weary after a trip where everything seemed to have gone wrong, and then some.

Asra had muttered that it was an omen. 

“What is it?” He replies, his breath against your ear. He smells warm and fragrant in a way that is not like himself; like he’s been using your perfumes again. You open your mouth to ask him, only to think better on it. You can’t risk the distraction that would be Asra, in all his infinite cheekiness, denying he could ever do such a thing, oh no master, not me.

The hand that is not in your hair is pressed against your back, Asra’s fingers rubbing circles against your spine. You let your head rest against his cheek. You’re sure you smell of weeks of filth - even now, the stench of iron seems to waft from your mouth in waves, your hair crawling with weeks of grease and dirt made all the fouler by sickness. How he does not bulk in disgust, you’ll never know.

In a haze, you remember the seamstress’ young daughter - then only seven - begging, pleading, for stories of high adventure of the forests and deserts that surround Versuvia. Her blonde hair had bounced in tight ringlets as she squirmed in her mother’s lap, and you indulged her in a tale or two. She had been thrilled, her mother, amused, and Asra - Asra, for all his wildness, had seemed happy.

You remember how he had looked walking to your shop afterwards, his skinny legs less like jelly and more sure now that he’d eaten a proper meal - how his magic and oozed out like a brilliant, opaline net over his body. You thought he was beautiful, although you did not tell him.

You swallow, and you look up at your beautiful boy, broader, stronger, smarter, older, now. Your vision begins to blur as you swallow the lump in your throat.

“You have to watch the garden, now.”

Somewhere in the distance, someone’s voice reverberates against the cobblestone streets, voice raw with tears: Please, don’t take h--

Asra looks down at you, eyes unreadable but quickly growing dark. He is clean and pulsing with life - you let your eyelids slide shut for one merciful minute and instead of blackness, his magic oozes into your brain like water into a teapot, pulsing fuschia and blue and gold. 

You hate and love him for the sense of warmth it stirs in your chest, even as his entire body tenses as you continue speak.

“Which means not as much napping, when the fall hits - but you’ll have all the rosewater and fennel seeds you could ever need and then some, when the winter hits, and then---”

“I don’t need to tend to your garden, because you’ll be fine,” he replies. You can almost taste his anxiety.

“Yes, you do,” you say, swallowing - you lick your lips and taste dried blood. “You need to take the lavender in a month from now, and turn the soil afterwards. Once the roses bloom, you have to--”

“Stop.” He’s begging now, as if pleading will slow the ever tightening noose. 

He’s so young, you think. He isn’t ready to handle this.

“Please, just listen--”

“No.”

Another rattling breath. “If you have any respect for me, you will listen.”

You can feel Asra breathe in deep, but he does not speak again.

“You have to watch out for yourself, more than anything. You know what lays in wait for you, my love.”

“If it’s between you or me, I’d rather--”

“Don’t finish that sentence.” There’s an anger in you that suddenly boils - you know Asra is only scared, but the sentiment stings.

There’s a long pause.

If Asra’s youth didn’t already feel like a dagger to the heart than the burden of this love you both share is the twist of the blade.

“Just--- Please, don’t say that.”

“Does that matter?”

“I’m only thinking of the most likely outcome.”

“And i’m only thinking of keeping you around,” This is the closest Asra has ever come to snapping at you, a hint of irritation in his tone you’ve never heard before.

“For how long? I have the plague, Love. This sickness is dark and unnatural - I only linger because of magic and luck.”

“. . . You’ll be fine.” He’s insistant. Stubborn. 

“You’re an adult now, Asra. Don’t run from this. You have to promise me that you’ll take care of things when I’m gone. I can’t--”

He presses a kiss to your mouth, tongue pressing against your teeth. You shove him as hard as the sickness sapping your body will allow.

When he pulls back, his mouth is stained red.


	2. A feather in your Cap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where did Asra get that big ass feather in his hat???? No one has asked that question, ever, but here I am, giving you that answer anyhow.

 

You set to work on the bird without hesitation.  
  
  
It is a big, beautiful beast - all  black only where it’s long feathers trickle into a rainbow of plumage that would make a rainbow jealous, and here it lays, wings unceremoniously spread out against the desert floor. It’s eyes are glazed over to a filmy white, it’s body slightly bloated from having lain in the sun all morning.

 _The desert is always so quick to strip down her treasures,_ you think, _we’re lucky to have found this guy mostly intact._  
  
You take the most useful feathers first - the ones that can be ground, or burned, or strung up into charms above the beds of the restless.

Further ahead, separate, but not dangerously so, is the caravan you and Asra are traveling with - making camp for the evening in their typical fashion. Start a fire, put food on, erect the tents or throw down the bedrolls, secure a night watch  - all done with efficiency only found in wild places that necessitate it. Their backs are turned, to you, however - whether they are superstitious and fearful or repulsed that you would scavenge off a kill that is not your own, you do not know or care.

You make quick work of removing the talons.

Beside you, Asra studies the corpse with all the cool grimness of a mortician. Around his neck is Faust, her tongue calmly tasting the crispness of a desert evening’s air.

 _Pretty!_ She says, her voice a high pitched fluttering against your mind.  
  
“ _Very_ pretty, little girl,” You reply, “But not as pretty as _you_ .” Asra chuckles under his breath as Faust tucks herself bashfully into his shirt. Overhead, the vultures that had circled from noon til now start to disperse as the sky fades from peach to purple.  
  
“I’ve never seen a bird like this before,” He says, casual as ever as he picks up a feather, admiring it in the dwindling sunlight. “Too bad we found it when it was already dead.”  
  
“It _is_ a shame,” you answer, hands smeared and bloody.  
  
“Although i have a feeling we were safer meeting it’s corpse than it’s living form. These birds can be territorial around humans,” you know it would make no difference to Asra - all living things flock to this boy like bees to honey, as if sensing the gentle, pulsing life magic coiled deep beneath his skin.

You are sure Asra could’ve spent ten minutes with this beast and made quick friends with it, it’s large wings cooped protectively over his skinny form, beak pressed into his hair.

“They call it King of the Sky around here,” you say.  
  
“They would have to be, with plumes like these.” Asra’s eyes dance as he studies the blackness of the feather that’s broken apart only by a brilliant multi-color gradient. His face sours. “Otherwise everyone would be hunting them down.”  
  
“Of course they were. Every man thinks he’s the exception to the rule - ‘oh don’t be silly, Charles, we’ll go hunt this beast down in a jiffy! No no, you won’t lose a finger! Promise!’ And then Charles loses a hand.”  
  
“Tragic.” Asra speaks the word with a snarl curling over his lips even as his tone is pleasant.  
  
“Charles was a good man, even if he was a sheep who was lead to slaughter,” you say, lips cracking into a smile.  
  
“‘Was?’”  
  
“He lost his hand to this big fellow,” you pat the bird, it’s corpse still warm from the sun. “Got a nasty infection. Died.” You feel the unique pulse of human life - and death - buried deep in this beast’s gut; in your minds eye, you picture a wedding band on a pale hand, a false sense of triumph, and then--

 

Pain.

Everything else is playful conjecture.  
  
“Typical,” Asra replies, but there is no humor. He is no stranger to cruelty, and by his tone seems tired of having to yet again witness it’s aftermath.

  
He picks up a flight feather and admires it for a long moment - long enough for you to reach over and pluck it from his hands.  
  
You run your fingers over it once, twice. It's unimaginably soft. You wonder if Asra's hair feels much the same.  
  
“Does it dying upset you?”  
  
Asra looks at you, lips pressed together in a thin line. He shrugs, but you only tilt your head.  
  
There’s a pregnant pause, and it’s as if he’s exposing something long hidden away in the process of simply speaking.  
  
“Yes, it bothers me.” He admits, but you can sense the things left unsaid.

Absently, he rubs the small lump in his shirt that is Faust's head.  
  
“Good. It should,” you say. Asra looks at you, expression unreadable.  
  
You raise the feather to your lips, running them over the spine of the feather, once, twice, three times - letting your magic sew itself into every fiber.  
  
You speak softly,”You are a magician. You found the threads of magic that linger in this world and followed them, and have been blessed with power that few possess in return. But there’s a catch to that; horror will follow you. Suffering will follow you, just as it always has. Things simply balance themselves out that way; an eye for an eye. A hand for a poisoned arrow. You can clean rotten well water with all the energy that it takes to lift your pinky finger, and men who lust for that kind of power but do not naturally possess it will parade their cruelty in front of you like moths to a flame. Each time will be worse than the last. Each time you'll think 'it can't get any worse' and it will. But never let your heart harden from it; to be of magic is to feel.”  
  
You kiss the base of the feather and feel your throat constrict; on another plane of existence, the bird flies back to it’s nest.

You hand it back to Asra. He seems to expect you to go on.  
  
“Just remember that. Food for thought.” He seems relieved that this is not a long winded lecture. You want to remind him that you are not his teacher.  
  
There’s a long silence as Asra turns the feather over in his hands. As if to mimic you, he runs the spine over his lips.  
  
“ …. What did you do?”  
  
“Just a good luck charm, is all. Keep it with you when you travel.”  
  
“ …. But it’s so big.”  
  
“Well, buy a big hat. Weren’t you complaining about getting sunburn on your scalp this morning?”

Asra only seems somewhat amused.

  
“....A hat?”  
  
“A hat.”


End file.
